Justice and policing are now devolved. What difference will it make?

THE Northern Ireland peace process passed another milestone this week when the Belfast Assembly voted by a large majority to approve the transfer of policing and justice powers from London. It was a significant breakthrough, given that quite a few assembly members have themselves attracted the attention of the police in the not-so-distant past. Now even those once considered dangerous will have a say on how the remaining paramilitary rumps are dealt with.

But, as is so often the case in Belfast, the advance took place not amid harmony and good cheer but against a background of attention-seeking and discord, as a single party held out against all the others. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), once Northern Ireland's largest but today a shadow of its former self, insisted on voting against devolution of policing and justice powers. The measure passed nonetheless, by 88 votes to 17.

The party made clear that it was not against devolving the powers in principle, only against devolving them now. Among its objections—and perhaps the most important—was a sense that the party, once at the centre of the peace process, was being excluded from the corridors of power these days. “We're meeting a brick wall from the two larger parties,” complained the UUP's deputy leader, Danny Kennedy.

In the assembly those bigger parties, Peter Robinson's Democratic Unionists (DUP) and Sinn Fein, often disagree. But together they command a majority, and when the two are in agreement they tend to pay scant attention to the UUP and other smaller elements.

In November 2008 the UUP formed an electoral pact with Britain's Conservatives, which the two parties presented as a new dawn for Northern Ireland. The trouble for both of them was that, although policing devolution should have been one of the brightest rays of that new dawn, David Cameron was unable to persuade his UUP allies to vote for it.

He tried hard. So did both Hillary Clinton, America's secretary of state, and, surprisingly, George W. Bush, who stirred from his post-presidential obscurity to ring Mr Cameron and urge him to bring the UUP into line. A strong supporter of the peace process throughout, America has particularly emphasised the importance of new policing arrangements.

But Sir Reg Empey, the UUP's leader and a politician who is normally more sedate than rebellious, dug in his heels. Even an emotional appeal from Kate Carroll, the widow of a police officer murdered a year ago by republican dissidents, did not deflect him.

Does the divided vote matter, since the assembly overwhelmingly approved the devolution of policing powers anyway? Not much, although diehard unionists may be encouraged to dig in harder, and Mr Cameron cannot have been pleased. The next test of political resilience—there is always a next test—will come in the general election likely on May 6th, when parties that share power in Stormont will be battling each other for Westminster seats.

For all the political hoopla, devolved policing will not deliver an early victory over the dissidents who killed Stephen Carroll. But it is an important step along the long road towards the isolation of the remaining gunmen. Many of them are unreachable political primitives, intent on bringing down the peace process rather than joining it. Ireland's justice minister, Dermot Ahern, pointed out recently that, with 13 big incidents since September alone, the dissidents have a growing capacity for violence, calling them a major and growing threat. The security forces north of the border agree.

Yet although these small but lethal groups are proving hard to eradicate, and although the UUP momentarily lost the tune, the peace process's advocates are still mostly singing from the same hymn sheet. The impressive show of support for devolved policing encompassed London, Dublin and Washington as well as most of the political spectrum in Belfast. Now, let's see what Northern Ireland makes of it.